The Gloves In Question
by Tuathail
Summary: Alanna and Jon are keeping a secret from each other. It is the same secret. Hijinks ensue. Set in ItHoTG.


The Gloves In Question

Summary: Alanna and Jonathan are keeping a secret from each other. It is the same secret. Hijinks ensue. Not to be taken entirely seriously, conflicts somewhat with canon, but too good to resist. Crit welcome. Written for a Sean Challenge at the Dancing Dove.

---

Squire Alan of Trebond has had a truly terrible evening.

Lady Delia, despite all prayers and wishes, remains both taller than Alanna and interested in dancing. The prince has spent most of the night looking more pleased than usual about making Alanna suffer, and Gary's sniggers whenever they happened to pass each other have been of no help. Now Alanna opens Jonathan's door and crosses his room in a hurry, searching for the pair of riding gloves left here by Lady Cythera (as Jonathan was heard telling Gary and Raoul, loudly.)

He'd said it would be in his top drawer. Alanna picks through the mess there and finds not the riding gloves, but a plethora of things she would have happily lived out her life without discovering in her knight-master's bedchamber. Exasperated, she begins to search the floor.

A tunic, a towel, a comb, a - don't need to know, don't _want_ to know, avert eyes, _avert eyes, Squire Alan -_ and, finally, the gloves in question. She picks them up, only to discover something under them that definitely does not belong to Jonathan.

Eyes darting around the room, Alanna walks quickly into her adjoining room and returns the item to her own top drawer, where it belongs.

---

"Squire?"

There is something amiss in his tone of voice. She walks more quickly than usual to his room. "Yes, Highness?"

Unless she is very much mistaken - and Alanna is very rarely very much mistaken - Jonathan is blushing deeply and seems to have developed a most uncharacteristic stutter. "I - well, not myself personally, but in any case - I seem to have, uh, misplaced something, and I was simply wondering if you may have noticed it about. It's not of significance, and I do understand if you have not indeed noticed it about, but I would take kindly to getting it back. And by I, I of course do not mean myself, but the person to have misplaced this in my room, who is another person that is not... me, and is in fact a lady."

Alanna stares at her knight-master. He stares back.

"Jon, spit it out."

"The aforementioned lady left something in my room when she was - here, for reasons we need not go into, but which I'm certain are not what one might assume."

"Mustn't be," she responds, and off Jonathan's look, "I'm not being pert. You're rarely shy about those who _are_ here for 'what one might assume', so this must actually be different."

The fact that Jonathan does not throw something at her tells her exactly how awkward he feels at this very moment. She finally decides to ask. "What is it?"

"It's, uh... hair ribbons."

Alanna opens her mouth to deny having seen this mysterious lady's hair ribbons, remembers, and shuts her mouth again. Wordlessly, she walks into her room, opens her top drawer, and returns to the prince with said hair ribbons in hand.

"Why were they with you?"

"I found them on my floor. I did intend to ask you about it," Alanna replies neutrally. Jonathan seems to take this reply in stride, and in trying to keep his own embarrassment to a minimum, fails to notice Alanna's.

---

Alanna does not believe in coincidence.

She is sixteen, and already too much has happened in her life for coincidence to even be an option. She fingers the ember-stone at her neck (another piece of evidence for her philosophy) and reaches for the rouge with her free hand. Alanna is not interested (all right, she is vaguely interested) in what Jonathan might have been doing, and with whom, to result in the latter losing her hair ribbons. Yet, Alanna asks herself as she fingers this new piece of puzzle, what could Jonathan have possibly been doing for the lady to also leave a tin of rouge on his bedside table?

Curiosity battles conscience, but it is no surprise when curiosity wins.

---

Times like these, Jonathan wishes he'd picked a slightly less proactive squire.

He turns the note over in his hands, musing. _Will trade rouge for truth_ is all it says, and he curses himself yet again for laziness. None of this would have happened if he'd been careful enough to pack up, or if he'd simply torn himself away from the ladies for a few moments to fetch things from his room himself. Still pondering, Jonathan knocks on Alanna's adjoining door.

The redhead is at the door immediately, the image of a perfect squire. "May I be of service, Your Highness?"

Not without some amusement, Jonathan holds up the note. "You know, I could order you to give it back."

"Then when I disobey, you could go to Duke Gareth," Alanna retorts, then imitates in a voice Jonathan certainly hopes is not supposed to sound like his, "Sir! I am here to ask that you punish my squire, for refusing to return my rouge."

For a girl almost a head shorter than him, Alanna is doing a very good job of being intimidating. Jonathan sighs. "Keep it. In any case, it would look better on you."

It takes Alanna one bell's time to realize this might actually be a secret worth keeping, and thus one worth finding out. It is three bells' time before she also realizes that there had been genuine bitterness in the teasing tone of Jonathan's voice.

---

The moon is lovely tonight.

Alanna is not usually so bold as to wander the palace gardens in women's wear, but a series of lucky events (besting Raoul twice in jousting, finding a silver noble on her windowsill that she is certain does not belong to her, being excused from the 'quiet gathering' that evening) have convinced her, perhaps falsely, that she can do no wrong. She simply needs to watch out for any of her friends who might have excused themselves from the ballroom, and also happen to feel a relaxing stroll in the moonlight is in order.

Movement behind her makes her halt, and it soon becomes apparent that someone else is on the same path. This is far from unusual, but for a moment Alanna does not know what to do. To turn means risking discovery, but she is far too curious not to turn. Who else would be out here alone when there is nodoubt a delightfully exciting party going on?

When curiosity finally wins, this time over prudence, the other person has turned around and is walking in a different direction. Long blonde hair flows down a back that is not entirely flattered by the tightly corseted dress, and there is something familiar about the walk. Alanna squints at the mysterious woman, wondering who she might be.

She turns without warning, eyes meeting Alanna's own violet ones in time to catch the surprise in them. "Alanna?"

Alanna is almost shocked beyond words.

Almost.

"_Jonathan_?"

---


End file.
